Labourstart Global Solidarity Conference opens this Friday in Berlin

Trade unionists from across the globe to meet to share ideas and strategies and to build transnational links

May 20, 2014
·
3 min read

The annual Global Solidarity Conference of the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement, LabourStart, will open in Berlin on Friday, 23 May, immediately following the close of the 3rd World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation. The conference runs until Sunday, May 25.

Nearly 700 trade union activists from 75 countries have registered to attend the conference, which will provide a crucial opportunity for trade unionists of all levels from different countries and industries to share and discuss ideas and strategies and to build strong transnational inter-union links

Among the speakers at the conference’s opening plenary on Friday, 23 May at 19:00 will be Mostafa Berrchid, a worker at the Total Call Center in Casablanca, Morocco, who was sacked for his union activity and who is the subject of a LabourStart ActNOW campaign that has generated 8,200 messages of protest in 15 languages.

In addition to plenary sessions there are more than 50 workshops taking place on a wide range of issues. The conference will also see the former general secretary of the International Union of Food workers, Dan Gallin, launch his new book,Solidarity: Selected Essays, published by LabourStart.

As a US-friendly no-deal Brexit inches closer, Bonnie Castillo of National Nurses United explains why US nurses have joined the fight against NHS privatisation. Recommended reading ahead of The World Transformed health sessions

In the 1970s, Lucas Aerospace workers had a plan to make socially useful products and went to minister for industry Tony Benn for help. Do the workers occupying their shipyard in Belfast have a similar ally in John McDonnell? By Hilary Wainwright